


I'm afraid I might die for you now

by kingquentin



Category: The Magicians (TV)
Genre: M/M, No Plot Just Feelings, Suicidal Ideation, just in case
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-28
Updated: 2020-07-28
Packaged: 2021-03-06 03:14:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 700
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25566499
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kingquentin/pseuds/kingquentin
Summary: The need to save Eliot was the only thing that mattered anymore.
Relationships: Quentin Coldwater/Eliot Waugh
Comments: 16
Kudos: 31





	I'm afraid I might die for you now

**Author's Note:**

> Sorry, there is literally no plot here, just a hastily put together bit of weird, rambling exploration of Quentin’s feelings for Eliot near the end of the Monster arc. I haven’t written since my super angsty drabbles in high school, so. It’s been a while and I have likely not grown at all as a writer in the past 9 years. Also, I listened to 10am Gare du Nord by Keaton Henson on repeat while writing this, which is where the title comes from. Thanks to James and Sarah for being super encouraging!!!

There was never really a time that Quentin didn’t want Eliot Waugh. From the moment that he saw him, lounging on that brick wall in the sunshine, he knew that he was someone important. Even if he never actually became friends with him, just existed on the outskirts of his orbit, he was clearly someone that mattered. Someone beautiful, someone unattainable, but someone that Quentin Coldwater would love nonetheless. He knew it in his bones the same way that he knew Julia would be with him for life when she forced herself into his world with that strange grace she possessed even as a young child.

And who could have known that he would actually have Eliot? Not just for a drunken mistake of a night, but for a lifetime? Things like that didn’t happen to people like Quentin. He didn’t get to be happy. And yet he was, for fifty entire years. And Eliot was happy and in love, too. Or so Quentin had thought. 

But somewhere between losing Eliot to old age and coming back to himself in his own younger body, he must’ve mistaken things. All of the time, all of the love, every small moment that meant the world to him. Every tile placed, every meal cooked, every moment spent with their son. Quentin must have romanticized it all, tricked himself into thinking things were better than they actually were. He reanalyzed every single memory he had of their life-not-lived, over and over, not trusting himself to have seen the truth of it. After all, Eliot had looked him in the eyes and told him that it wasn’t them. That neither of them would choose it. And Quentin was no stranger to people telling him how he should be feeling, so he did what he always did. He let them win and he let it go.

And so Eliot broke his heart, and pushed him away, and had the audacity to think he got an opinion on what Quentin did with his future. And then he was possessed by the same monster he tried to save Quentin from an eternity with. 

Quentin had to save him. It was the only thing that mattered. Above everything else - food, sleep, bodily functions. The fate of anyone he didn’t personally know. He didn’t want to think about how the lives of everyone he’d helped the Monster kill and the deaths he could’ve prevented would be weighed against his soul. He felt that if he stopped for even a moment, the very ground would crumble underneath him somehow. He wondered if he would ever stop feeling like there was a vice grip on his heart. And Quentin didn’t dare let himself have naive hope anymore; he tried not to think of those few stolen seconds when Eliot had broken free, couldn’t let himself wonder if he had meant with those words what Quentin so desperately needed him to. He stamped down every thought of the countless times Eliot had cared for him when he couldn’t do it himself, the gentle hands and gentler words. If he let himself hope only to have his heart broken again, something intrinsic in him would break for good.

Quentin wondered what they all thought of him sometimes, their unlikely group of friends. He knew they saw his desperation. Was it obvious, how he felt about Eliot? No, it couldn’t be. There weren’t enough words in the world to describe what sharing a life with someone for fifty years meant, how deeply they became a part of everything you are. But none of them were stupid. They had to know that he cared for Eliot. But Quentin had thought that it was obvious from the very beginning, just not obvious enough for the man himself to realize it. It had taken years at the mosaic for Eliot to truly understand and accept that Quentin was in love with him, had been even before the key quest began. But even that was meaningless now.

The need to save Eliot was the only thing that mattered anymore. If doing that took everything from him, even his own life, then so be it. He would sacrifice it all.


End file.
